"Sharp, quirky, and occasionally nettlesome", Walking the Berkshires is my personal blog, an eclectic weaving of human narrative, natural history, and other personal passions with the Berkshire and Litchfield Hills as both its backdrop and point of departure. I am interested in how land and people, past and present manifest in the broader landscape and social fabric of our communities. The opinions I express here are mine alone. Never had ads, never will.

September 20, 2007

Potpourri Post

The Equinox will mark our 12th wedding anniversary, so Viv and I are taking a long weekend in the Adirondacks to celebrate and leaving our children (for the first time) at home with their Gramma. In the interest of having many more such anniversaries, I am taking a few days leave from blogging until we return. A few observations, then, about where readings might go in the meantime:

Yesterday my inveterate blogging cousin Tigerhawk witnessed the 2,000,000th unique viewer viewer of his eponymous blog. What is even more extraordinary, TH's first million happened on July 30th, 2006, marking an incredible growth in readership. Our politics are often quite different but I find myself reading Tigerhawk more than any other political blog (more often than most other blogs, period) because the community of readers and commenters that it sustains provides a wider tent than other conservative blogs. Some snark, to be sure, but then, you can get that here, too. What I appreciate most is the ability to speak with and learn from people with very different outlooks on what are often "defining" issues, but also to find areas where those on the left or right can nonetheless see each other beyond the labels, as well as sometimes eye to eye. Well done, TH!

The Katoomba Group's Ecosystem Marketplace featured Lars Smith of the blog Conservation Finance and his innovative proposal to benefit local communities that rely on tourism but whose natural resources suffer impacts from too many tourists through a system of tradable park quotas.

"This system would put daily visitor entry permits into a trading market, with each conservation area's visitor carrying capacity limiting the number of permits sold. As demand for a limited number of permits in a popular conservation area swells, prices rise, generating more money from permit fees for those who still choose to come, while encouraging visitors turned off by the price to explore more remote areas with less expensive permits. Revenues from the trading scheme could then boost biodiversity conservation in each participating area.

In developing countries, these protected-area tradable quotas (known as PATVIQs, for Protected Area Tradable Visiting Quotas) could be used to increase revenue for under-funded parks, and mitigate pressure on overcrowded ones. By requiring biodiversity tallies from member parks, more money could also be channeled to protected species. Last but not least, Smith hopes that along with raising money for conservation, the proposal could also involve local communities, who are too often the losers when it comes to protecting natural areas."

Finally, the incredibly talented and personable Jennifer Forman Orth of the Invasive Species Weblog is in the job market. Anyone who needs someone with her skills and abilities would be lucky to have her on board, and if you happen to be located in the Greater Boston area, all the better.

All the best, then, until next Tuesday when, refreshed and revitalized, we shall return to regular programming here at Walking the Berkshires.